LONDON: Angela Lansbury, a London-born actress who appeared on stage, screen, and television for seven decades, especially during the 12 years she spent portraying fearless mystery author Jessica Fletcher on CBS' Murder She Wrote — has died. She was 96.

Just five days shy of her 97th birthday, Dame Angela Lansbury passed away peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles at 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday, October 11, 2022, her family says in a statement obtained by PEOPLE.
She is also survived by her brother, producer Edgar Lansbury, and her three grandkids, Peter, Katherine, and Ian in addition to her three children, Anthony, Deirdre, and David. "Her 53-year spouse Peter Shaw preceded her in death. At a later time, a private family ceremony will be place."

The future character actress (Mrs. Potts in Disney's animated Beauty and the Beast) and leading lady (the eccentric aunt on Broadway in the musical Mame) Angela Brigid Lansbury was born in Belfast, the daughter of actress Moyna MacGill and her second husband, timber businessman Edgar Lansbury. In a 1993 PEOPLE story, Lansbury called her mother "a pure Irish beauty."

When the elder Edgar Moyna passed away in 1934, the family, which included Angela and her younger (by five years) twin brothers, Edgar and Bruce, who both went on to become successful producers, found itself all but broke. Moyna had taken the young Angela to plays at London's Old Vic and enrolled her in a school for the arts and dance. 

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